put a phone mount in so I can pull up avionics while driving in some new areas. incorporates charging cable into it. Works pretty well. Very sturdy. 5 bucks on eBay

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I completely rewired the tower with Knucoceptz 12 gauge wiring. I forget what the name of this wire is called but its the oxygen free copper one. Also wired in Neutrik speakon connectors for folding the tower down.

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I used a volt meter to test to find which wire on the fuel pump (I think) was the ignition activated wire. So there would only be power to it when the key is in the on position. (or the boat is running) See the next caption for the reasoning.

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I took the wire tapped into the ignition wire and put a relay in the small ground wire that powers the Voltage sensing relay MC puts in there boats. Since I have an AGM system the relay will sometimes not open when it should. Since the resting voltage of AGM batteries is higher than that of lead acid batteries. This way, if the key is off the batteries are separated no matter what. When the key is on the VSR allows the batteries to combine for charging off the alternator. I want them completely separated without a doubt when on shore since I have separate chargers wired in for the stereo bank and starting battery (see later pics). You may be wondering how do I get the stereo to turn on if the key is off (separating the batteries). I took the breaker panel off under the steering wheel and routed the stereo wires to the seat heat breaker. This way the stereo can turn on whether the key is turned on or not. I don't have the seat heater option so this was fine for me. Only catch is you have to remember to turn the stereo off manually or it will stay on. Unless you switch the battery switch to the off position. (I'm talking about the switch from the factory that can combine the batteries, turn on, and turn off)

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This is an XS Power D1200 battery used as the boats starting battery. I shorted the boat's starting battery cables and rerouted them to here to make more room for the stereo bank. The difference in this battery is that its supposed to be better for cranking (D series) than the XP series I have for the stereo bank (made for supplemental power). The charger you can see in the picture is velcroed up on into the side wall. It is a Pro Mariner ProSport 6 on AGM mode.

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Here is where I routed an extension cord plugged to both of my battery chargers. I used a circular saw and drilled a hole in the panel behind the cup holders and mounted a pro mariner cord holder in there. Works great. You can see the Aux cord laying there too. I routed it here so passengers could control the music.

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This is the big charger I decided to go with to charge the stereo bank on shore. It is a Progressive Dynamics PD2150 50 amp automatic charger. It is made for three bank (have to open the unit and wire in your own extension power cord and the battery bank cords.) I used 8 gauge Knukoncepts OCF wire to wire the battery bank in as one large bank. (all four batteries are in parallel. See later pics) This charger is also on AGM mode

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Here you can see the batteries I used for my stereo bank. They are 4 of the XS power XP2000's. I think they are 80 amp hours a piece. I made my own bus bars out of aluminum bar and sprayed them with plastidip to reduce the huge fire hazard risk. ( I know they are still too open to be safe, I'll work on that later)

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U can see that the heater switch is flipped up and lit up. *This is my on off switch for the voltage meters since I don't have a heater, it worked out perfect. *(unpictured, I have an underwater LED wired to the courtesy lights switch as well.)

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Two Stinger voltage meters. *One is wired to the stereo bank and the other is the starting battery. *This way I can always check at a glance how my banks are doing as far as capacity. (or charging if I'm underway or on shore with the chargers plugged in)

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Here is a better view of the four new wet sounds rev 10's with swivel clamps. *Also in the picture is my new boat mate trailer from a blow out incident. Thats another thread. *Thanks insurance. That was right before memorial day. Bummer

Here is a couple pics of what all those batteries are for. I have 4 amps right now. In between the amps you can see the distribution blocks (1 pos, 1 neg) each block has two zero gauge runs from the battery bank and runs 4 gauge out to each amp independently. All the wire is ran under the floor.

The two wet sounds ones are Syn 4's they power 2 Rev 10's each giving each speaker about 325 watts. (more with the alt cranking at higher RPMs in riding speeds)

The little blank amp mounter vertical is a Precision Power p900.4 Its a full range class D amp. 4 channel. Giving 200x4 isn to the in boats. Hell of an amp. 189 bucks. works awesome and stays cool cranking all day.

The huge amp mounted to the floor is an audioque AQ2200D. puts out 2000 watts at 1 ohm. I have two runs of 0 gauge wire to both the positive and negative terminals. All amps are properly fused as you can see from the pics below.

Originally I bought the AQ2200D amp to power an SSA XCON 10 inch wired to 1 ohm. I had a box made to fit into the compartment below the seat thats behind the drivers seat (where the stock free air sub was). The free air sub was long blown so I cut off the mounting flange from the woofer and used it to cover the 10 inch hole in the fiberglass where the sub was mounted. Anyways, I didn't account for how much the sub would stick out when mounted into the box. I made the dimensions as large as possible to maximize cu. ft. of the box. Its ported with a 4 inch aero. It did not find into the spot easily. I finally was able to wedge it in backwards withe the port firing towards the open hole in the fiber glass and with woofer firing towards the stern. It didn't sound good and had terrible port noise. I just pulled it out and didn't mess with it. I put back in my Kicker solo baric L7 12 inch in a ported box at 2 ohm and just used this amp. It is very loud itself and even a bit louder with this amp. It did have a kicker zx 750.1 on it. The solobaric is sitting under the passenger seat right beside the amps. Takes up the whole compartment but sounds really good.

Wow! You went ALL out with this! Respect! I have the same 08 x-2 and getting ready to rework the stereo. I was wondering if you can confirm this for me...prior to rewiring your tower, did you already have 4 pairs of factory speaker wires run from the tower to the locker area? 4 green and 4 purple I believe.

Also, with adding all the batteries, do you think you would need to upgrade to a higher output alternator?

Wish I could hear the system on your boat. I can only imagine how pissed off the neighbors are in the next county :)

cal2vin

10-27-2013 10:40 AM

Yes the tower had 4 green wires and 4 purple wires (pos and neg for each of the four spots). When you rewire I'd buy about a 100 feet and just tape onto the old wire at the far starboard hole. Pull it all through. The old wire is taped together and will have to come out all at once. Then just take the other end of the 100 foot spool tape it to itself at the speaker hole and pull through then fish it out to the inner starboard hole cut tape the end to the tower and repeat. Takes a while but it works.

And no alternator for me because I have the 50 amp shore charger and I plan on it doing most of the charging when the bank is depleted. I actually have a switch wired into the VSR circuit as we'll so if we have sat all day cranking music then go ride I'll just flip the VSR off so the alternator doesn't see the huge load and have to work constantly to recharge.

Calvin

imyourmaster

10-27-2013 10:49 AM

Tanks for the info Cal2vin! Also, I'm i correct in assuming your power wires run directly from the batteries to the amps? It does not look like you "bypassed" the main 3 way battery selector switch...

imyourmaster

10-27-2013 10:54 AM

Sorry...let me rephrase. It does look like you bypassed the 3way battery selector switch.

cal2vin

10-27-2013 10:56 AM

Yes the amps are wired straight to the batteries. As is any other accessories. The 3 way switch is just for between the batteries and the alternator. And a few select things that get 24 hour power like bilge.

imyourmaster

10-28-2013 05:39 PM

Are the Speakon connectors 4 pole?

cal2vin

10-28-2013 06:08 PM

Yes they are. Pos and neg for two channels per connector. I wanted the ones that were even more heavy duty and had a higher weather proof rating but they were solder connections and I'm bad with a soldering gun. I got the one with screw terminals. Only like one model has screw terminals so look closely. I actually have the solder ones. If anyone wants em ill sell them. Get on the neutrik website and they are the most heavy duty series. I wanna say stx series??? All black nickel metal.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

imyourmaster

10-30-2013 12:25 AM

Cal2vin! We have the same boat and I'm getting ready to replace the one factory JL amp with 2 new ones. Am I correct when I say the factory wiring runs from the batteries to the 3 way battery switch and then to a fuse at the helm before it runs out to the amp itself? Reason I'm asking is this... If I run new power and ground wire directly from the battery to the new amps , what happens to the factory wiring which currently connects to the amp?

Also, if I remember correctly, my two batteries are not connected in parallel. I don't recall seeing any wiring connecting the 2 neg posts and the 2 positive posts of the 2 batteries. Will this become an issue if I run new power and ground wire from one of the batteries only?